This was one of those moments. There were so many birds singing, flying from perch to perch, chirping that I felt like I had stepped into a wonderland. When I heard this female Downy's chirps, I thought she might be headed for the suet feeder, and she was. 
But not before pausing to take it all in and give me these lovely poses. 
My, I think she's hungry! Or maybe this is her dessert attitude.
For those of you who may be unfamiliar with it, the suet nickname refers to infamous blogger, NPR commentator, author, artist, naturalist, Julie Zicklefoose, an experienced bird feeder who has made the recipe renown with her observations about her feathered patrons.
I made my first batch less than two weeks ago and just before our Tennessee thermostats plummeted into single digits. So far it’s given me countless giggle breaks as I've peeped out the window to see what’s going on out there. And there's always something going on.
A titmouse was my first taker. He grabbed a chunk of the peanut-buttery suet and devoured it on a nearby limb. And the suet attracted the first blue jays I’ve seen near my feeders.
They were cautious about approaching the feeders, but eagerly snatched the tidbits scattered on the ground. A parade of other suet lovers has followed, among them, the frequent visiting white-breasted nuthatch, a pair of Downy woodpeckers and flocks of juncos.
The happy chattering of this Carolina wren usually brings me to the window. It’s a sound that reminds me of a giggling child or the purring of a contented cat as he chows down dinner. I watched him grab a bite of dough, drop it to the ground, jump down to gobble it up and hop back to the plate for another helping. 
A couple of days ago, instead of chatter, I heard him scolding. I looked out to find him perched over an empty plate. Visitors had come in the night and cleaned up all the leftovers leaving behind plenty of scat on the ground.
Hmmmm. Raccoon? Opossum? It didn’t look like any scat I found on the web. I became more judicious about handing out dough and started bringing the suet plate in at night. Then last night, a sound outside the door. I turned off the inside light and flipped on the porch light to take a peek and look who I found.
Kind of cute, huh? But I think ‘pure trouble’ is a better description. His buddy sauntered off when he spotted me in the window.
Her recipees for bird suet and variations for how to attach it to a tree, make me eager to get started. And the timing couldn't be better. Berries and seeds are fast disappearing and the official date of winter hasn't even arrived. After this red-bellied woodpecker's visit to the dogwood last week, I noticed by afternoon all the berries in that tree were gone.
For more experimenting, here are a few more sites with scratch suet recipes and ideas for serving your dining guests: The Baltimore Bird Club's full page of suet recipes; The Nutty Birdwatcher's page of suet facts, feeders & recipes and Scialis' page on Suet Recipes. And don't miss trying the popular Zick Dough found at Julie Zicklefoose's nature blog.
Now which one to try first! But here's another question. My first experience with suet feeding resulted in the whole block mysteriously disappearing overnight. So the bigger, nagging question is how do I outsmart the racoons? If you have any success stories, I would love to hear them.
